


if I could tell her, tell her everything I see. tell her she's everything to me.

by angelica_barnes



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Multi, Pining, church and peggy are dead just a heads up, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: it's been three months since angelica's world ended. about twelve weeks. about 84 days. however many seconds in however many minutes in however many hours, she doesn't care anymore.but then she meets thomas.and he's nice, and he's gentle, and he gets it in a way they can't, because he lost james, his boyfriend, just a few months ago too.also, john and alex pine and eliza likes maria and maria is... well, you'll see and laf and herc like to make out a lot.





	if I could tell her, tell her everything I see. tell her she's everything to me.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "If I Could Tell Her" from Dear Evan Hansen.
> 
> PLAYLIST :
> 
> If I Could Tell Her - Dear Evan Hansen  
> Requiem - Dear Evan Hansen  
> Only Us - Dear Evan Hansen  
> For Forever - Dear Evan Hansen  
> Let Me Go - Hailee Steinfeld, Alesso ft. Florida Georgia Line, WATT  
> Meant To Be - Bebe Rexha ft. Florida Georgia Line  
> It Ain’t Me - Selena Gomez ft. Kygo  
> Golden Slumbers - The Beatles

There are six weeks left of school and the world’s ending and Angelica can’t bring herself to die.

She promised him she’d die.

Her boyfriend, her soulmate, her lover.

But never mind that. Never mind _him_. There are others to worry about, like the freckled boy and his wide green eyes and he’s so afraid and she wants to make him feel safe. But nothing can, he’s too panicked, and she closes her eyes and takes his hand and tries to remember what Peggy’s eyes were the color of. Marigolds, maybe?

Never mind. Never mind everything.

“I’m Angelica.”

She doesn’t know how she brings herself to speak, after so many weeks of silence, and the boy looks up at her and he’s smiling through the tears and god, how could nobody fall for that smile? Well, she won’t, but still.

“John. Laurens.”

That explains the bruises on his face and arms. She doesn’t comment on the name, though, and instead takes his hand and tugs him up off the bench and out the doors, down the sidewalk and to the coffee shop, Per Say. And nobody questions why two fifteen-year-olds are there, alone in the morning, and there’s a barista, bags under his golden eyes and a pencil shoved behind his ear and half-hidden by his greasy hair and the stubble patched on his cheeks is dark and he’s fast, faster walking than she could ever run.

John seems to have stars in his eyes. She doesn’t comment on it, that she knows him, because he’s her sister’s boyfriend and his name is Alexander Hamilton and Eliza wants to marry him and that used to hurt Angelica because she loved him too, once, but then Church died and nothing else really seemed to matter anymore.

“You’re so gay,” she whispers, and he just smiles, eyes twinkling, and it contrasts so deeply with the tear-stains on his cheeks and then Alexander comes over and he stands up on his tiptoes to kiss her cheek in the high booth.

“Hello, my dearest Angelica. How are you today?”

She smiles wryly. It’s not like he knows, he never could, just how big the gaping hole in her chest has become, but having him care means something, to an extent. The light in John’s eyes flickers, though.

She smiles at him. “Alexander, this is my friend, John.”

He turns, and his and John’s eyes meet, and Angelica swears that’s the moment she sees Eliza’s soulmate start to become someone else’s.

But she, she’ll never become someone else’s ever again.

 

-

 

“Eliza?” Angelica calls when she gets home, and like every day, she reaches out and rips the framed photo of Peggy off the wall. Her dad has never questioned it, and her mom is dead, with a grave right next to Peggy’s in that godforsaken cemetery only five blocks from school, the five blocks she can run with ease and knows all the shortcuts of by now by heart.

Her sister flies down the stairs, dark hair flying out behind her, and she’s wearing that tattered blue sundress again, the one with the white daisies on it. Angelica scowls. It was Mom’s.

“Why are you wearing that?”

Eliza blushes and folds her hands in front of herself, bashful as always. “I like to. It reminds me of her. She was here just a year ago, ya know.”

Angelica sighs. “Exactly, Lizzie.”

But she says nothing more on it, instead brushes past her sister and drops the broken picture of Peggy in the middle of the stairs right before she slams her door. Eliza yells something at her, but Angelica just collapses back onto her bed and reaches up to finger the heart-charmed necklace on her chest. She does this every day, Eliza should be used to it by now. And Dad won’t be home till eight, anyway, not that he even cares about the mental state of his eldest daughter, to busy fawning over her little sister, who’s perfectly fine, all smiles and sunshine and _oh, Alexander_.

The phone rings and she picks up with a tired hello, because she really loathes talking to people now and John was something out of the ordinary and she’ll probably ignore him from now on anyway, until she has to (as was written into the unspoken laws of social norms) go beat him up for breaking her sister’s poor, dear, fragile heart. (Ha.)

It’s Lafayette. They call periodically, to check in, and they’re the only one who hasn’t picked Eliza over her yet.

“Hey, Laffy.”

He babbles on for a few minutes about Mulligan, their boyfriend, and then forgets about that and moves on to glitter and new rap songs, and Angelica listens with the ghost of a smile gracing her lips.

She hears giggles from downstairs.

She sighs, “I gotta go, Laffy. Bye.” He says I love you but she barely hears it and she stands and goes downstairs and there’s Eliza, laughing at something Alexander said and he’s sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, and he reaches out and takes her hand when she walks in.

“Hi, my dearest,” he whispers, just for her to hear, and helps her up onto the seat next to him and hands her his cup, and she smiles over the lid of it as she sips its bitterness.

“Hi, Lexi.”

Eliza watches with a fond grin, so naive and so in love, and Alexander leaves within the next hour and Dad comes home and shouts at her for tearing down the picture of Peggy _again_ and Angelica’s heard it all at this point and so she just dryly states that, “Mom wouldn’t have yelled at me,” and storms out of the room while her father stares and Eliza crumbles into tears and oh, look, she doesn’t matter anymore because he only cares about her.

Sweet, beautiful Eliza.

Angelica grabs her maroon coat and puts it on over her black dress and black boots and black jeans and walks out the door with her hands stuffed in her pockets and her hair whipping in the wind behind her.

 

-

 

Her mother would’ve hated how often she runs off to the yard of stones by Trinity Church, but that’s where her mother is buried. Along with her little sister, and more recently, Church.

Everyone tells her to move on, except for Alexander. How can she? It’s only been three months. _Three months_. How are you supposed to move on from the love of your life in three months?

She’s mumbling under her breath again. One of the reasons they all think she’s mad now, anyway. Her phone vibrates in her pocket but she silences it. She’s not in the mood to talk to Alexander right now, sensitive as he may be, if only to her.

And as she’s watching her feet scramble forward on the pebbles, she misses the person standing still right in front of her and a grave marked, _James_.

“Oh!”

She stumbles, and strong hands grasp her biceps, and she grabs his. “Sorry.”

Angelica looks up at her savior and finds magenta-coated dark eyes looking at her through hooded eyelids. He looks as tired as she, and his hands are gentle.

“Hi.”

Then she shakes herself from it. No, no, this is exactly how she started falling for Church, but she doesn’t believe in love anymore, not when his grave is barey thirty feet away. So she shakes herself from the boy’s - yes, he looks to be eighteen - grip and smiles.

“Sorry. Again.”

He just smiles and turns back to the grave with sad eyes. “It’s okay. I never look where I’m going either. Just trying to get through each day as it is, y’know?”

She nods slowly and breathes, “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. Me too.”

His eyes flicker to her and a huff of laughter escapes his lips. “Who’re you here to visit?”

She wouldn’t tell anyone this, normally, except maybe John, and her dear Alexander, but she’s feeling bolder in his presence, better now, more comfortable, and so she tells him and then tells herself she won’t betray her heart in such a way again. No, she won’t let herself fall in love with him.

“My mother. My sister. John Church, my boyfriend.” Her voice lowers. “Well. Not anymore, I guess.”

He just smiles sadly. “Yeah. Me too.”

She cocks her head and he backtracks quickly, “My boyfriend, too. James. Madison. Maddie.”

She nods, and they just look at each other for a minute, and his hoodie looks soft and warm but he seems to be shivering and then she notices, “You’re wearing nothing but black. Except the magenta, of course.”

He looks down at himself and laughs, quiet and husky, and she bites her lip. It’s such a sad, hollow sound.

“Always am. James only died a few months ago, of cancer. And they said he’d get better, too.” He laughs again, this time sad and mocking. “Fools. They all are. They never understand, much as they try to.”

She nods. “My sister when she was eleven, in a car accident. My mom went insane because of it and had an overdose. Church killed himself.”

Her voice lowers and she doesn’t even notice his fingers curl around hers. “And no, they never do understand. They never can.”

He smiles at her. “I’m Thomas. Jefferson.”

She does too, for the first time in months for real, “Angelica Schuyler.”

He tugs her along by the hand, and she doesn’t visit her loved ones’ graves that day. Instead, she follows this tiny bit of light out of this gloomy dark cemetery, and he takes her home, and at the door, they exchange phone numbers, and she thinks she just might be starting to heal.

“Bye, Thomas.”

A crooked smile. Still tainted by blues, but there. Genuine.

“Bye, Angie.”

 

-

 

The next day, she takes a deep breath and ties her hair up and lets some tendrils fall in front of her face - she can’t afford to be seen completely, yet. And then, she puts on her white floral sundress with the tattered skirt and her black tights and her gold combat boots with the black laces and her pink coat and walks out the door with a simple locket around her neck. Eliza is silent next to her, not questioning the sudden change in her sister, but there are butterfly pins in her hair and she takes one out and lodges it on the left side of her sister’s head.

Angelica speeds up so Eliza can’t touch her again.

At the door, there’s John, talking rapidly with Alexander, and he’s blushing furiously but Alexander also looks starstruck, for once. Lafayette is kissing Mulligan by the door, no surprise, and Angelica pushes down the curling envy in her stomach and the nervousness she feels under the weight of other people’s stares.

Alexander greets Eliza with a kiss and John waves them goodbye and races to catch up with Angelica.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” she answers shortly. He purses his lips and then tries again.

“Well, you look really pretty today.”

She looks up at him. “You’re gay.”

He smiles and laughs. “Yeah, I am. But I just thought you needed someone to tell you the truth.”

She blushes and reaches down to squeeze his hand, then leaves for class, and there’s a kid with headphones in his ears leaning back against the lockers. He’s wearing a magenta hoodie over black jeans and white sneakers, his hair wild around his head.

“Thomas?” She breathes, and he looks up, smiling, and tugs his earbuds out of his ears and goes up to meet her. He reaches down and threads their fingers together, and she smiles up at him.

“I didn’t know you went here.”

He shrugs. “Same for you.”

She steps forward and buries her face in his chest, and he lifts his arms to hug her, untangling their hands. She feels him kiss the top of her head.

“Can we go to Per Say after school?” She says, muffled by his sweatshirt, and his lips curl into a smile.

“Sure.”

And it’s not a date. She’s not in love with him yet. But somebody understands, somebody really, truly understands, and for now, that’s enough.

 

-

 

“My dearest Angelica,” Alexander greets her as she takes her seat beside him in ELA. “How are things?”

She smiles at her desk and doesn’t answer him.

“Angel?” He whispers, and she can hear the underlying worry in every word, and she looks over at him.

“I’m fine, Lexi. How’s John?”

Alexander grins bashfully. “Lovely. Though it’s your sister I’m dating.”

She looks away. “Not for much longer.”

He doesn’t answer.

She takes that as one.

 

 

-

 

When she walks inside Per Say, he’s waiting for her at the table in the corner, smile slight and earbuds hanging from the collar of his sweatshirt.

She takes a deep breath to calm the fluttering in her chest and settles herself in the booth across from him. He nudges a cup across the table towards her - hot cocoa. With whip cream and tiny marshmallows. Her favorite.

She doesn’t ask how he knows.

“So,” she says softly, lifting the cup to her lips and taking a long sip. She’s sure she has a mustache now. She giggles at the thought.

Oh, great. Two minutes into this and she’s already the mad girl who giggles at everything and wears dead animal barrettes in her hair.

But he just smiles.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

“For what?”

She thinks for awhile, but can come up with no reason for the apology. She shrugs and blushes.

“I don’t know.”

He grins. “Laughing?”

She smiles and nods, and he reaches across the table to take her hand. He leans forward and murmurs, “Can I tell you a secret?”

She copies him and nods, “Yes.”

He smiles. “I laugh too.”

 

-

 

She gets home as the sun is setting, after stopping at the cemetery to visit Mom and Peggy, and Church, to say sorry. Eliza is sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for her with an easy smile.

“Alex called you,” she says, sugary sweet, and Angelica pulls her phone out of her pocket and dials his number. She then heads upstairs without thanking her sister and shuts the door behind her.

“Lexi? Lizzie said you called me earlier.”

“My dearest Angelica,” she smiles, “I did. Where were you?”

She blushes and is glad he can’t see her. “With Thomas. My friend.”

He smiles; she can hear it. “Wonderful, my dearest. I was with John.”

“Your friend?”

A pause.

“Maybe more. Someday.”

Angelica grins and bites her lip, “Be careful.”

His voice softens. “Never. I love you, my favorite older sister.”

“Love you too, Lexi.”

“Bye, Angel.”

“Bye.”

 

-

 

Peggy, though she died at eleven, had had a best friend who was fourteen, like Angelica, at the time. Now fifteen, and Angelica found her behind the school, breathing through a cigarette.

“Hey, Maria.”

“Heard you were hanging out with that Jefferson kid.” No introduction, per usual. Angelica nods.

“Yes. He’s nice.”

Maria sighs and drops the cigarette, stamping it out with the heel of her boot. “So was I, Pink.”

“You could call me Angelica.”

A yellow-toothed smile. Those were rare.

“Never, darling. Still think your sister’s Yellow. And Blue, of course.”

Angelica smiles back. “Miss you, Red.”

Maria reaches out and threads their fingers together. Chipped nails and equal broken hearts - one of the only ones who could ever understand. She lost Peggy, after all… they lost her.

“Miss you too, Pink. Always have.”

Angelica cocks her head. “I’ve been around.”

Maria’s smile is fainter now, back to that tell-tale smirk she’d had before… well, y’know.

“Your body has.”

Angelica giggles, at nothing again, and Maria’s lips quirk up at the corners.

“Tell Blue I love her.”

Angelica calms herself, regains her breath. “You should.”

Tugs Maria forward and they fall into step together, and they go home.

Angelica hasn’t had a home for a long time, but she’s getting there.

 

-

 

“I have this friend named Aaron,” Thomas starts, the next time she sees him. “And he knew Maddie -” His voice breaks and he coughs to cover it up. “James, and I’d love for you to meet him.”

Angelica just nods, smiling, and lifts Thomas’ hand to kiss the back of it. She’s snuggled into his side, and they’re watching a movie. She lost interest a while ago; honestly, she has no idea what it is they’re watching anymore. She’s half-asleep as it is… he’s so soft and gentle and _comfortable_.

“He’s coming to the party.”

Her eyes open so fast, it’s like a switch has been flipped. She doesn’t let go, but she does freeze.

“Is he nice?”

Thomas lifts his hand up and combs his fingers through her curls. “Do you think I’d let him near you, Angie, if he wasn’t?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“He’s okay. You’ll be okay. You’ll like him, even.”

Angelica nods stiffly, and then closes her eyes again. Eliza’s watching from the top of the stairs, but she doesn’t care.

“I hope so.”

 

-

 

Later that week, they all meet up for dinner at that new pub, Eddell Ay’s. Thomas picks her and Eliza up at their door, and Angelica sits in the front seat and she and Thomas smile and giggle and whisper with each other while Eliza smiles at her phone. Alexander, no doubt.

When they arrive, Eliza heads right in, kissing Alexander at the door and saying something softly to him, and Angelica sees John, peeking out from behind the door, and she sees his smile falter.

As Thomas goes to open the car door, she reaches out and grabs his fingers in hers, holding them so tightly his knuckles turn white. He turns back to her.

“You alright?”

“So many people.”

She didn’t used to have social anxiety. She was the life of the party, the one everyone wanted to hang around, but then her sister died and her mother died and her boyfriend fucking _killed himself_ and she became withdrawn and heavy and angry and now it’s her living sister they flock to.

He turns his body towards her and cups her face in his hands. “Hey. Hey. Look at me.”

She does.

He smiles, as if he’s seeing everything in her, and she has no idea why he would. She’s nothing. She’s been nothing since Church died, and she misses him everyday, and her fingers still tremble whenever she answers the phone because she worries she might get a call about a body; Eliza is happy now, but what about when Alexander leaves? Maria has sniffed enough white stuff that her eyelashes and nose are stained red with tearstains and sleepless nights and cold and snowflakes.

And Thomas. God, she can’t lose Thomas. She can’t let him see everything that’s wrong with her, everything she thinks now. He’s too beautiful, too kind, too gentle, but he’s also fast and fierce and opinionated and he fights, battles through every day just like she does.

“Angie,” he murmurs now. “I’m right here. And I’ll stay with you the whole time, okay? If anyone tries to so much as look at you wrong, I’ll kill them. Alright?”

She nods, carefully, and he smiles. Then he gets out of the car and she takes a deep breath and steps out on her own, and he threads their fingers together.

“I’m right here,” he leans down and whispers in her ear. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

She knows he doesn’t just mean for the party.

 

-

 

Inside, Maria is sober and standing stoic in the corner, with Eliza. Angelica can hear snippets of their conversation as she passes.

“You’re always high, Ria.”

“Missed you too, Blue.”

“You’ve gotta stop this.”

“I lost Yellow. I’ve got no reason to, darlin’.”

“What about me?”

“Oh, come on, Blue. You really think you can just charm your way into my heart like it’s nothing.”

Eliza’s expression steels.

“I know I can.”

“Really?”

Mocking.

“I already have.”

Maria scoffs and goes back to her cigarette. Thomas pulls Angelica ever so gently forward, and that’s when she sees Laf and Mulligan, making out in the hallway, and she chokes. Thomas looks back at her and asks softly if she’s okay; she nods and presses herself closer to him.

John, bruises, black-eye and all, is watching Alexander argue loudly at a man she’s never seen before, who seems a little at a loss of what to do with the angry teenager in front of him.

“That’s Burr, right?”

“Yes,” Thomas answers. “Aaron.”

She takes a deep breath and untangles herself from him, then steps forward and shouts, “BOYS!”

They both look at her, Alexander and Aaron, and she grins, feeling the expression settle with breathtaking familiarity on her face.

“Stop fighting,” she says, softer now. “It won’t solve anything.”

Alexander blinks, as if she’s just told him the answer to the most complicated problem in the world and she’s said it like it’s nothing. She’s sorry, Lexi dearest, but no, the point of fighting is not simply to fight. Not against nothing.

But surprisingly, he shuts up. Then grabs her wrist and tugs her outside, and she waves goodbye to Thomas with his twinkling eyes, and then she’s alone with her sister’s boyfriend, breathing in the fresh night air.

She feels free. Better than she has in awhile, unburdened.

“My dearest Angelica,” he whispers. “Do you love him?”

And she takes a moment to think, in silence, and then she answers as honestly as she possibly can.

“I don’t know.”

 

-

 

After the party, Eliza is passed out in the backseat. Too much social interaction, most likely, but Angelica feels jittery, afraid, and she doesn’t know why, but her hands are shaking, and she presses them between her legs to try and hide it. She’s cold, too, which doesn’t help - black flats and bare legs and a pink dress. Thomas’ eyes keep flicking back and forth from her and the road worriedly.

They stop at the gas station and she looks at her watch, finds it’s about midnight. Gets out of the car, walks around to stand next to Thomas. Closes her eyes, rubs her arms with her hands.

Suddenly there’s something soft being pulled over her head, and she opens her eyes and moves her arms almost instinctively, slipping them into the sleeves of the hoodie and nudging her head through the top hole of the sweatshirt.

Thomas’ eyes are right there to meet hers, his smile soft but wide, and she reaches up without thinking about it and wraps her arms around his neck, playing with the curls on his nape. His arms come around her waist, and they just stare at each other, spinning in a circle and swaying side to side.

She almost feels like she’s dreaming.

But then he leans down and kisses her, and she knows she’s not. She closes her eyes and kisses him back, even though in the back of her mind, she remembers Church’s eyes, and feels slightly guilty. But she’s sure Thomas is thinking of James, too, and so she lets herself melt into the kiss because she likes him, she really likes him, and he gets it in a way no one else can, really.

When they pull away, their faces are flushed, and he’s smiling softly at her and she grins.

At this point, one of them should probably say something, but neither has anything to say. So they just stare.

“We should probably get back in the car,” Thomas says when her teeth start chattering, his voice raspy, and she laughs.

Scares the crap out of her. She hasn’t laughed in what feels like years.

“Okay.”

 

-

 

She calls Alexander that night.

“He kissed me.”

“Are you happy?”

“... should I be?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Am I… allowed to be?”

“You’re allowed to want the world, Angel. It’s just up to you to fight for it.”

A pause.

“I miss Church.”

“I know, my dearest. But you have a second chance with Jefferson. Don’t waste it.”

She’s silent for a moment, carefully considering her answer.

“I won’t.”

 

-

 

She meets up with John at Per Say, two days afterwards. It’s Sunday, and she hasn’t seen Thomas since Friday night, when they kissed. She thinks about calling him, but then decides against it - they can talk on Monday, figure out what they are.

John looks guilty and nervous when she sits down across from him, and she doesn’t even say hi, just sips her cocoa with a raised eyebrow and waits.

He breaks pretty quickly. “I’m in love with Alex.”

She nods. “Yeah. I know.”

He lets out the breath he’s been holding, and it comes out shaky, but he smiles. It’s bashful and nervous and _so_ smitten.

“He’s in love with me.”

She nods again. “I know. How’d you find out?”

John blushes. Fucking _blushes_. Looks down at his coffee and smiles to himself.

“He writes me love letters.”

Angelica sighs. Of course he would, he’s Alexander. She reaches across the table and takes John’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Then I wish you the best of luck.”

 

-

 

She walks to Alexander’s house in the rain. It’s Lafayette’s too, because they’re both adoptive sons of the Washingtons, but she knows that Laf’s probably with Mulligan.

She’s surprised when they're not. They open the door for her, and grin. She smiles back and accepts the hug they offers, gripping them tight. They haven’t talked in so long, because of how withdrawn she’s been, and she misses them.

“You’re here to see _mon petite lion_ , correct?” They ask when they pull away, and she nods. “Great. He’s right upstairs.”

She thanks them and heads that way. His door is open and she can see him typing furiously on his laptop, and she smiles.

“Hello, Alexander,” she says softly, and the bed creaks as he jumps up and goes to hug her, grinning. “How’ve you been?”

“Wonderful,” he answers, voice muffled by her hair, and then he pulls back and his golden eyes shine in the lamplight.

She smiles. “You’ve been sending John love letters.”

He turns bright red and starts stuttering, “My dearest, I -”

Her smile widens to a grin. So Alexander does love him.

“Then break up with my sister and go kiss him, you idiot!”

He shuts his mouth. Blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes it again.

Finally, he mumbles, “What?”

She rolls her eyes. “You love him.”

“... yes.”

“He loves you.”

“... uh-huh.”

She waits, but it still doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

So she shouts.

“Then why are you still talking to me, asshole?!”

He jerks himself awake and brushes past her to bolt out the door, and she can hear Laf’s surprised screech from downstairs.

She smiles.

 

-

 

On Monday, she stays home sick. Not because she’s sick, but because her stomach aches from the butterflies and nerves at the thought of seeing Thomas.

Because what if he doesn’t want her? What if it was only a spur of the moment thing? What if she’s betraying Church and what if Thomas dies and she loses her everything all over again?

She calls Alexander, though she knows he’s at school, and he answers.

“Hi, my dearest Angelica. I’m hiding in the bathroom right now instead of being in Dad’s class and passing notes to my boyfriend, so what is it?”

She smiles at the words, _my boyfriend_. At least she’s helped someone figure their shit out, even if she can’t deal with her own.

But then she frowns as she remembers why she called in the first place.

“Am I evil, Alexander?”

“How could you be?”

“A man died because I couldn’t love him enough. Now I no longer love him at all.”

Alexander is silent for a moment. She can practically hear him thinking.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, you’re not evil. Because you’re just like me - guilty of falling for those you shouldn’t. Turns out that’s who you’ll always end up with anyway.”

She bites her lip.

“He’s so much older than me, Lexi.”

“John is a boy. The son of a homophobic and racist man. One who is abused and tortured and I had the perfect girlfriend, Angel, my Betsey, but she was, _is_ no longer enough. So am I evil for loving him? For loving John, a monster’s child?”

She whispers.

“No.”

He smiles.

“Then neither are you.”

 

-

 

The next day, she walks to school in the rain. She waits for Maria at her door, and the blood-dressed girl comes down the steps in black combat boots and an infra red crop-top, paired with grey skinny jeans. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders and her make-up’s so well done that Angelica can’t even tell it’s there.

She really is beautiful. Angelica can see why she caught Peggy’s attention.

“Hey, Pink,” Maria rasps with her signature smirk. Voice scratchy from so many cigarettes. Cocaine and marijuana. “Ready for school?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

When they get there, Eliza is waiting at the door, where she slips her hand into Maria’s and they walk inside together. Angelica bounds up the stairs to Alexander, who’s whispering about something with John while the freckled boy giggles.

“Hey, Lexi.”

Alexander smiles and blushes, then kisses John swiftly on the mouth and suggests he go inside in a soft voice. John nods and whispers that he loves him, then untangles his fingers from his boyfriend’s and runs down the hall, curls bouncing.

She and Alexander stare at each other for a moment before she smirks.

“So he’s your dear Laurens, huh?”

Alexander’s cheeks pinken and he smiles bashfully at his feet. “Yeah.”

She grins, and he looks up and his brow furrows in worry. Over what, this time, she doesn’t know. “But you know you’re still my dearest, right?”

She nods, and he hugs her quickly, kissing her cheek.

“Good. Well, I’d better catch up with him then, huh? Bye, Angel.”

She watches him leave.

“Bye,” she whispers.

 

-

 

She only sees Thomas once she gets to her locker, and he’s waiting there with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie again. She takes a deep breath and then heads over, and that’s when he looks up and spots her.

His face lights up and she smiles as she heads over to him, lacing their fingers together.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He kisses her, and she kisses back for a moment, and then she pulls back and says, “We don’t have to be anything if you don’t want, ya know. I know you just lost James, and I just lost Church, and if you aren’t ready then I totally understand -”

“Angie.”

She looks up, and his eyes are crinkling at the corners and he’s grinning.

“Angie. Oh, god, Angelica Schuyler,” he chuckles softly to himself, “I love you. And I know no matter what I say you’ll never think that’s true because in your head, you’re too damaged for love.”

She opens her mouth to protest, though she knows he’s right. But now, she just wants to know how he could figure her out so quickly.

“But I’m way past broken too,” he continues, voice softening. “And I’m not sure you see it. But you will. Because I’ll let you see it, I’ll let you see my scars and my fears and my photographs of Maddie and, eventually, my hopes and dreams because they all involve you, Angie.”

She can’t move. She can’t breathe. She can’t say anything, not even the truth, which is how just much she loves this boy. He’s the first ever to render Angelica Schuyler speechless.

“You,” he whispers. “This woman, who scribbles hearts around fictional characters’ names in math class because she wishes she were them. This queen, who wears butterflies in her hair and talks to the birds in the tree by her window because she can’t talk to her sister. This _angel_ , who is afraid to answer the phone and visits the cemetery everyday and thinks she used to be some fierce, passionate, defensive fucking _goddess_ , but she is! She still is!”

He pauses to catch his breath and shakes his head, his curls swaying and bouncing, and he’s laughing. And she can’t even see the world around her anymore, not the people passing by or Alexander waving or Eliza kissing Maria by her locker while other students stare, all googly-eyed. Nobody else, just him, Thomas Jefferson, and all that he is. All that he represents.

“And I love her,” he starts again, just a whisper, meant solely for her. “I love that girl so goddamn much, Angie.”

He takes her face in his hands and grins at her, “I love you. So fucking much, Angie.”

And she doesn’t need to make a speech. She doesn’t need to cry. She doesn’t need to think about Church’s dark eyes or James’ thick hands or anything that her mother ever did or said after her sister died.

She just needs to tell him the truth.

And that, she can do.

With ease, even, “I love you too, Thomas.”

 

-

 

Alexander smiles when she tells him, his eyes still golden and John’s freckles still countless; they’re leaning into each other in the booth across from her at Per Say while she sips hot cocoa and Thomas holds her hand under the table and they each have one earbud in, stemming from the same iPod, and she’s okay.

There are no days left in the school year and the world’s not ending and half her family may be dead, but as it turns out, her family is way bigger than she ever thought it would be.

 

 

 


End file.
